


Another Soul To Cling To

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-13 19:34:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5714566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's always the same nightmare for Clara. Her mother screaming, and her father running. Only this time, the Doctor is there when she wakes up, and he has a terrible confession to make about the role he played in her mother's death.</p><p>When she learns the truth, it blows apart her world and destroys everything she held dear. </p><p>How is she supposed to cope when a Doctor doesn't equate to a cure?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85bN6Yqpy30), as well as a widely held fan theory about the Doctor's role in Ellie Oswald's death. It started off being moderately angsty and somewhat escalated - I promise it will get lighter in upcoming chapters. 
> 
> Set between Sleep No More and Face The Raven.
> 
> "See, the darkness is leaking from the cracks.  
> I cannot contain it.  
> I cannot contain my life."  
> \- Sylvia Plath

She woke up gasping for breath, sitting bolt upright in bed and closing her eyes tightly, shaking her head furiously to try and dispel the final vestiges of the dream as it clung to her.

_The shop windows smashing in a cascade of shards, the panicked crowds stampeding, and the screaming, the terrified screams of people who didn’t understand how their world had been blown apart. Her mother had been there, holding her hand, and Clara didn’t even care that she was too old for that, she didn’t care about anything other than surviving._

_Her mother falling, her face frozen in agony, her hand going limp in Clara’s as the life faded from her eyes._

_Clara reaching for her, a scream frozen in her throat, before her father dragged her away…_

“Clara?” the voice was soft and gentle, but it came out of the dark and startled her. She shrieked and flinched away from the source of the voice, cowering under the duvet and desperately wishing she could stop shaking.

“Hey, Clara, it’s alright.” Danny reached for her hand in the darkness and then pulled her into his arms gently, stroking soothing patterns onto her back. “Was it the nightmare again?”

She nodded weakly and buried her face in his chest, wrapping her arms around the reassuring warmth of his torso and trying to quell the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. Slowly, the trembling subsided and her breathing began to return to normal, and she took a fortifying breath.

“It’s not a nightmare,” she confided. “It’s a memory, it’s from when…” she couldn’t finish the sentence. She couldn’t explain what had happened, not to Danny, not to anyone, because the only person who could possibly understand was her father, and he was too far away to be any real comfort. She sighed softly and rested her forehead against Danny’s shoulder, grateful for the warmth of his embrace.

His embrace tightened around her, and she felt an impending sense of dread, her stomach constricting into knots as she began to realise that something was wrong. As she pulled away, she realised what had happened, realised that her worst fears were confirmed, even as the cold, silver figure before her raised its hand to her throat, cutting off her scream before it could escape her mouth. 

“You will be deleted.”

 

~/~/~/~

 

She woke, screaming, in the console room, her makeshift pillow falling to the floor as she sat up abruptly. This was better. This was far more real, far more familiar, and she felt the tension dissipate from her body as she closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing.

“Clara?” the Doctor looked to her immediately from his workbench, crossing the room and crouching before her, his eyes wide with concern. “What is it?" 

“I just… bad dream.” She tried for a casual tone but her breath caught treacherously, so she turned her face away before he could see the moisture in her eyes.

He loitered against the railing, uncertain of how to proceed, surveying her warily, as though he was afraid she may detonate at any moment. “What kind?” he decided upon after a few seconds, and the question was enough to make her meet his conflicted gaze with her own.

“It…” she didn’t want to tell him, but somehow the words found their way out anyway. “It was… I was there, when my mum died. I saw it happen. And sometimes… sometimes I dream about it, that’s all.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” he mumbled, suddenly embarrassed. She’d never spoken about her mother’s death before, and it suddenly felt like too intimate a topic to be discussing. He stood and bustled over to the console, busying himself with the monitors. 

“I came to university in London. But I guess you knew that part from when you were Bow-Tie.” She smiled a little despite herself, a mischievous smile that quirked up half her mouth just the slightest amount. “Stalker.”

“It wasn’t stalking!” he protested. “It was… interested research.”

“Whatever. Anyway, I was still at school, but I had an interview. My parents weren’t gonna let me come all the way down from Blackpool on my own, so they took the day off work and came down on the train. Mum called it ‘making a day of it.’” Clara paused, remembering her mother’s proud smile in the morning, her nerves on the train, the sprawl of the capital. “I had my interview, and then we decided we were gonna go shopping. Dad moaned, but mum and I moaned more, so we won that round. We were on Oxford Street…”

A single tear slid down her cheek, and she brushed it away impatiently with the heel of her hand. “We were on Oxford Street, and that’s when it happened… the shop windows smashed, and then everyone started screaming. Mum was laughing. She thought it was all some publicity stunt. Even when we saw the mannequins walking about… she thought it was just people in suits.”

The Doctor had frozen, his back to her. She was somewhat pleased he was listening without interrupting for once, so she carried on, her voice a little surer now that she knew she held the floor. 

“When they started shooting… that was when we knew it wasn’t… when we knew it was serious. We ran, but there was this one… it just came out of nowhere. It shot Mum and then it turned to me, but we ran… we had to go back after and find her body…”

“Clara.” The Doctor’s voice sounded strange. Clara couldn’t quite place the curious tone it had until he turned to face her and she realised he was crying. “Clara, I need to tell you something.”

She frowned slightly. “We’re not doing ‘caring and sharing’ now are we?” she asked, her tone half-serious, but his face hardened as he slammed his fist onto the console.

“Damn it, Clara, can’t you just… listen to me! I was at her grave.” His voice was harsh, and Clara took a small, somewhat fearful, step away from him as the memory took hold of her. Standing there with her father, her eyes full of tears. A small movement catching her eye, and then the curious man in a bow-tie who darted away when she saw him.

“I realised it then, I should have told you, I’m so sorry…” he was crying once more, his hand on his forehead, and Clara was suddenly consumed with an all-encompassing fear, one that settled in the pit of her stomach and strangled her words.

“I thought I could stop it in time… it was… an old enemy, I didn’t know it was here until too late… it had already happened…” The Doctor was all but sobbing, and with terrible, dawning comprehension, Clara understood. The blood drained from her face as she backed away from him, her eyes wide with fear and fury. 

“It was _you_?” she asked rhetorically, already knowing the answer in her heart but praying that by some miracle she was mistaken, that she had misunderstood, and that the Doctor was not telling her what she thought he was telling her. “You’re the reason…”

“I wanted to stop it! I was trying to stop it, I _did_ stop it, I saved you, I saved your father!” he pleaded, and his desperate look, his desire for redemption, was what pushed her over the edge.

“You _saved_ me?! Am I supposed to be grateful for that? Grateful for the fact that you’re the reason my mother is dead, the reason my dad didn’t smile for three years, the reason I nearly _killed_ myself? She died, and it was _your_ fault, you and your bloody aliens, so just… just _go to hell_ , OK? Go to hell and you stay there, you do _not_ come looking for me, you do _not_ come near me, because so help me, I will knock all of your next thirteen regenerations out of you. Do you understand?” Her voice had started off somewhat hysterically, but by the end of her threat it was ice cold and perfectly level, the tone that had frightened students and friends alike. The Doctor could only nod weakly, too full of guilt to argue his exile from her life.

Seizing her bag, she left the TARDIS and strode out into the darkness of the London night, her eyes full of angry tears, her mind alive with thoughts that had not tormented her since she’d finished the recommended course of counselling and stopped taking the pills they’d prescribed her. When she reached her flat and fumbled her keys, she smashed her fist into the unrelenting wood of the door frame, longing for a physical pain that matched the turmoil inside her head. Anger, fear and sadness uncoiled like snakes in her mind, slipping coolly into memories that had once been happy, souring all that she had loved about travelling with the Doctor, as quiet, hissing words filled her mind. _He knew all along. He knew and he didn’t tell you. He was just pitying you._

She could never bear to be pitied. Not even at the funeral, not even at the enquiry. She had stood stoically through it all, her chin held high, and it hadn’t been until her dad had caught her creeping out of the bathroom one night with a wad of toilet paper clamped to her arm that she’d broken down and admitted she wasn’t coping. Even so she’d been dragged to therapy kicking and screaming, and the medication had been contested every morning in loud arguments that sometimes woke the neighbours. Clara Oswald did not like to be anything less than perfect, in any respect. 

She collapsed onto the sofa and buried her face in a cushion, the voices overlapping in her head as she squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for some silence, some respite. There was no contingency plan for this. The control freak inside her had never planned for this scenario, never considered that her world could be thrown upside down in this way. She wanted to pace the room, she wanted to lie in bed for a year, she wanted to cry, she wanted to scream… the desires within her were so conflicting she could scarcely breathe with the pain of them. She curled up as tightly as possible, considering what she now knew. As she lay in the dark with tears tracking down her face, too numb to even feel them as they pooled in the hollow of her collarbone, she ran through her thoughts quickly, like skimming a finger through a filing cabinet. _He knew, it was him, he brought aliens, she died, he saved me, but she died, he was there at the grave, he knew, he didn’t tell me, he knew, he pitied me, he knew, she died, he knew…_

And so it went on as she drifted into a deep and unrefreshing sleep, her heart aching with its every beat as her mind tore itself apart.

 

~/~/~/~

 

The school had been ringing her, that much she was vaguely aware of. Her dad might have stopped by once or twice, she honestly couldn’t remember. Something about getting help, or pulling herself together. Everyone had told her that so much and so often that their voices had blurred into one unintelligible chorus. No one could understand her actions, her withdrawal from the world, her sudden lack of enthusiasm for anything she had once held dear. Indeed, _she_ barely remembered the last time she had left the flat, carpeted as it was with crumpled clothing and empty food packets, full of memories she could hardly stand and things she would rather escape. As she stood in the breeze, she closed her eyes and tried to recall the last time she’d felt it on her face, the last time she’d felt the sun on her pale skin. The wind stirred strands of her unwashed hair, and she gazed down at her grubby nails as though she hadn’t noticed them before.

The emotions had left her slowly. Starting with her banishment of _him,_ slowly but surely the feelings had leached from her until she felt as though she were nothing more than a shadow, nothing more than an empty shell of a former self, masquerading as a human being. She had felt this way before, of course, but she had had hope those times, had people around her and support networks and escapism. It wasn’t until her father had pointed it out to her – in the few moments she remembered of him visiting the flat with Linda, with that woman who would _never_ replace her mother – that she had realised the Doctor was responsible, indirectly, for both Danny’s death and Ellie’s, and thus responsible for her current state. The anger had washed through her then, filling her with an incandescent rage that she had taken out on a number of items of crockery, until the neighbours had banged on the ceiling and complained about the noise. Since the anger, she couldn’t remember feeling anything, and so here she was, sat on the bridge with her feet dangling over empty space as the sounds of the city filled her ears. She couldn’t remember feeling alive, let alone happy. She couldn’t remember anything other than the quiet, whispering voices inside her head, and so here she was.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed herself off the side of the bridge and towards the cold, slate-grey waters of the Thames, praying for a miracle.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, this chapter is somewhat lighter than the previous one! Plenty of angst, but plenty of fluff too. 
> 
> "I have fallen a long way.  
> Clouds are flowering  
> Blue and mystical  
> Over the face of the stars."  
> \- Sylvia Plath

Clara was revelling in the feeling of the cool November air rushing around her when there was a change in pressure, a shift in atmosphere, and she opened her eyes to find herself staring into the furious eyes of the Doctor, the light of the console room casting haggard shadows across his face.

“What the _hell_ do you think you’re playing at, Clara Oswald?!” he all but shouted, slamming the doors of the TARDIS behind her and locking them securely, as though afraid she may bolt for them when his back was turned. “There’s nothing interesting at the bottom, there’s nothing exciting on the other side!”

Clara sighed inwardly, feeling a rush of anger, following by a jolt of adrenaline at the realisation that she was feeling something once again, something other than the crushing numbness she was acclimatised to. “I wasn’t playing at anything!”

“What would you prefer I call it, then? Practicing an extreme sport? Bridge diving for the 2100 Solar System Olympics? Because I hate to break it to you, but you’ll definitely be dead by then, especially if you keep this up.” The Doctor stalked around the console and seized a blanket, hovering with it at arms length, caught between anger at her actions and concern for her welfare.

“I was… it was a science experiment.” Clara stammered, cursing the words even as they left her mouth, snatching the blanket from the Doctor despite her anger and wrapping it around herself securely, as though it may exact a modicum of protection from the barrage of words he was flinging at her.

“Oh, a science experiment?! What was the independent variable? Have you done this before from a range of bridges? What was the dependent variable? Level of drowning? Splatter pattern?”

“Oh for god sake,” was as far as Clara managed before she dissolved into furious tears, her shoulders heaving with sobs. The Doctor dithered momentarily before wrapping an arm around her awkwardly, patting her back and trying to offer a small level of comfort as she wept. For a few seconds, Clara curled into his chest, her tears turning the lapels of his jacket a deeper shade of burgundy, before she pulled away angrily, her face contorting into a snarl. “I don’t need you,” she spat. “That was the whole point, I don’t _need_ you, that’s why I jumped.”

“You didn’t need me? Oh, fine, should I tip you out again? Should I let your dad find you washed up in a week’s time? Should I have to have that on my conscience forever?” The Doctor’s words were increasingly cutting, and Clara retreated to the upper level of the console room, congratulating herself on the height advantage. She stalked along the deck, scowling furiously, letting the blanket fall to the floor and kicking it aside in lieu of doing the same to the Doctor’s face.

“Yes you bloody should’ve! You have my mum on it, you have Danny on it, why not make it a hat trick?” she asked cattily, her face contorted with rage.

“Well, I don’t want you on my conscience looking like that…” the Doctor quipped, and Clara’s scowl intensified.

“Like what?” she demanded, and he raised his eyebrows.

“Well, you know, I didn’t like to mention it, but…” he gestured to her dishevelled appearance, and that was enough for her to break down again, collapsing into the armchair that adorned the reading deck and curling up tightly, her arms encircling her knees protectively.

“I couldn’t… I didn’t have the…” she mumbled quietly, kneading her palms into her eye sockets as she wept until stars popped behind her eyelids. She was surprised to feel a warm hand taking hers and pulling it away from her face, offering her a neatly pressed paisley handkerchief to dry her tears. The Doctor crouched beside her as she mopped her eyes, remaining mercifully silent as she cried, his thumb gently rubbing the back of her hand in a small gesture of comfort that marked the first human contact she hadn’t flinched away from in a number of weeks. When she had retained some degree of composure, the Doctor spoke softly, his eyes and voice brimming with concern.

“Whatever you need, it’s here, Clara. Bathrooms to your heart’s content. The best bubbles in time and space. Beds softer than a cloud – and I’d know. Take all the time you need… and all the space, if that’s what you want. I’ll just… go off and tinker, or something. Or I could drop you on a planet somewhere, a nice spa planet, how about it?” he stumbled over his words, unsure of himself and the footing that they were on, cursing his clumsy attempts at humour.

“I don’t… I think here is good. I just… I don’t know how to feel about things. How to feel about… _that._ I don’t know how to feel, end of.” Her voice was measured, but her hands shook as she spoke and it was then that the Doctor noticed the angry purple bruising across her knuckles and the cracked, bleeding cuticles around her bitten nails. He felt guilt stir deep inside him – guilt that he hadn’t protected her better, guilt that he’d hurt her, guilt that he’d never noticed the cracks beneath the façade she so carefully constructed.  

“I know.” He said softly, looking down at her wounded hands and trying to judge whether Clara would permit him to heal them, or whether she would consider it be a frivolous waste of his regeneration energy. “I don’t know how to feel myself, and I don’t… I would rather you were here.” He didn’t add _so that I can keep an eye on you,_ but hoped that she’d understand his words and the sentiment behind them.

“Well then… a bath would be nice,” she murmured softly, getting to her feet slowly and holding the back of the chair for support. It was then that he noticed how thin she’d got, the hollows under her eyes, the jut of her collarbone, and he realised that the help she needed may be more than he could offer. When she took a wobbly step, he offered her his arm reflexively and she wound her hand through it, though he couldn’t tell whether she’d always been this light or if it had been a recent development.

“I’m still mad at you,” she said with the ghost of a smile. “Don’t think I’m not.” 

“Didn’t for a moment,” he concurred good-naturedly, leading her down the corridor to the bathroom he knew she favoured, the one with the claw-footed tub large enough for ten. “I ah… I left your things be. Just in case you… you know.”

“Hoping?” she asked, her tone falling half a beat short of playful, but he smiled anyway.

“Wishing,” he admitted, leading her through the door and gesturing to the racks of towels and products she had left behind on previous visits. “I’ll leave you to ah… yeah. And urm, I’m s-”

Clara cut him off with a shake of her head. “Let’s not do this now, Doctor. Please. Later.”

He nodded his assent and left her to her bath, wandering the corridors until he located the room he scarcely used: the kitchen. He’d never had much cause to cook before – he left that to Clara, usually, or suggested that they eat out – but this time he was determined to show his sincerity by offering something in the way of sustenance. Even as he browsed cupboards, he could sense the TARDIS’s amusement, and he couldn’t help but scowl half-heartedly.

“Aww, c’mon. I’m just trying to be nice, woman.” He scolded. “You, stop mocking me and keep an eye on her. Don’t let her… you know.” He couldn’t quite bring himself to say the words, couldn’t quite risk giving life to his darkest fears by uttering them aloud, so he concentrated on toasting bread and boiling the kettle, bustling around the space until he’d put together something that vaguely resembled a meal. The TARDIS, her attention diverted, deigned to allow him to pass through the warren of corridors back to Clara unimpeded, and he knocked upon the bathroom door with a sense of apprehension.

“Come in?” her voice was so faint he could scarcely make out her words, and he pushed the door open hesitantly, stepping into the warm embrace of the bathroom with his precious cargo held aloft. Clara was sat in a corner of the bath, her hair plastered to her scalp, buried up to her neck in bubbles and looking somewhat more relaxed than she had done half an hour prior.

“I ah… I brought you this.” He held the tray up, an initial peace offering between the two of them, and Clara smiled weakly, the light not quite reaching her eyes.

“Domestic,” she noted, reaching for the cup of tea immediately, and it was then he noticed for the first time the silvery white scars that lined her wrist, the shock taking hold of him as he realised what they meant, what they symbolised. He had never thought of Clara as fragile or breakable, and he certainly wasn’t about to start, but he realised in that moment how breathtakingly mortal she was, how defined she was by the weight of her humanity. 

He knew he shouldn’t ask her, but the words tumbled from his mouth unbidden: “what happened?” 

He regretted it as soon as he’d said it, as soon as he saw a cloud pass across Clara’s face and her eyes take on a deeper kind of sadness, but then her jaw set and although her eyes grew moist, he saw fire in them once again. She raised her chin defiantly and met his gaze steadily, too exhausted to sustain a lie any more.

“I survived a war,” she told him. “I fought a war, and I won.”

“Who with?” he asked her, his hearts aching with sadness as he understood for the first time that there were things beyond even the comprehension of the Time Lords, human things that his race could never hope to understand.

“Myself.” 

“Oh.”

“It was a long time ago,” she assured him. “I was younger; I didn’t have a hobby then. Nothing to distract me. I got caught up…” 

“Was it my fault?” he asked before he could help himself. “Was it because of… because of your mum?”

“Not everything is your fault.” Clara’s tone was almost exasperated, and he panicked momentarily, wondering if she was about to turn the full force of her anger on him once again and praying that she wasn’t. “This was just… me, messing up.” 

He wasn’t sure what to say, so he took her hand gently, before sliding his fingers softly down her wrist until his palm rested against the scarred skin of her forearm. “You survived that. And you can survive this.”

Clara rested her chin against the lip of the bath, her eyes wide and full of tears that she fought to keep under control. The warmth of his hand radiated through her entire body, and she felt her anger ebb away and be replaced with a desire for the all-encompassing oblivion of sleep. 

“Clara?” he retracted his hand and backed away from the bath a little, afraid he’d overstepped a mark or crossed an unspoken boundary. This wasn’t something he’d ever dealt with before, not an occurrence he’d ever made plans to deal with, and so this was winging it like he’d never winged it before.

“Just tired,” she mumbled. “Can you pass a towel?”

He reached for the largest and fluffiest towel he could see and passed it to her, before turning to leave the bathroom.

“Don’t go.” She implored him, her tone pleading. “Just turn around, no peeking.”

Comprehending that this was not an opportune moment to argue, he turned his back to her and stared at the floor obediently, really, really hoping that the TARDIS’s attention was elsewhere and that she wasn’t watching his face turn as maroon as his jacket.

“I’m decent,” she trilled, and he turned around with trepidation, half expecting her to be playing a trick on him, but he was met with the reassuring sight of her, wrapped in the cavernous depths of the towel, sat beside the bath and chewing thoughtfully on the toast he’d made. “This is pretty OK, too. Didn’t know you cooked.”

“What happened to sleep?” he asked her, raising his eyebrows quizzically and giving her what he hoped was a stern glare, or an approximate imitation of her teacher face.

“Doctor, you have a terrible poker face. I’ll sleep right after this, OK, daft old man?” Clara attempted a smile at him and he returned it tenfold, grateful to be able to drop the stern mask. “You haven’t moved my bedroom, have you?”

“I don’t think I have.” He assured her. “It’s still where you left it.”

“Excellent,” she got to her feet shakily, not even complaining when he took her arm once more and strolled with her slowly towards the room she had made her sanctuary, precisely where he had left it, untouched, for the past few weeks as he prayed she would return to him.

“I’ll ah… I’ll say goodnight, then,” he managed, shaking himself from his melancholic reverie. “Just shout if you need anything.” 

Clara nodded, her expression clouded by a range of emotions, before settling on the look of sadness that was already becoming achingly familiar. “When I wake up…”

“We’ll talk. If that’s what you want.” His tone was conciliatory, placating, and Clara nodded once more, her mind made up.

“Goodnight, Doctor.” She slipped inside her bedchamber and he returned to the console room, sinking into a seat and sighing. _The Impossible Girl. Only now she’s impossible in a thousand other ways. I don’t know how to deal with this, I don’t know enough about human nature to help her._ The TARDIS chided him, beeping at him irately, until he realised the point she was trying to make. He didn’t need to know human nature, he only needed to know Clara. And that was one advantage he did have.

He remained where he was, trying to build up courage, and it wasn’t until he was quite sure that Clara was asleep that he rose again, creeping back through the corridors and hesitating for the briefest moment before entering her bedroom stealthily. His eyes adjusted to the gloom and he took in her form, tangled amongst the blankets on her bed and surrounded by scraps of paper. He eased himself into the chair beside the bed, sighing quietly.

“What have I done to you, Clara Oswald?” he mused softly to himself, gently straightening the blankets around her and smoothing the covers tenderly, making sure she wouldn’t catch a chill. He collected the scraps of paper into a neat pile and placed them on her bedside table, catching sight of Clara’s scrawled handwriting on the top: _tell the truth._ His breath caught in his throat a little, and he clenched his fists to stop himself from crying, to stop himself waking her up with his tears. Once he was completely sure he had stopped shaking, he flicked his wrist a few times, his palm glowing golden, and placed his hand on top of Clara’s. He watched with utmost care as her skin healed, as the angry purple colour subsided from her knuckles and her cuticles regrew. She would notice, he knew that much was inevitable, but he was past caring, intent instead on making reparations for the damage he had inflicted on Clara both emotionally and physically. He fussed with the covers a final time before he left the room, closing the door behind him carefully. 

In the dark solitude of her bedroom, a single tear bisected Clara’s cheek. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Please, don’t ask me who I am.  
> A passionate, fragmentary girl, maybe?”  
> \- Sylvia Plath

Clara awoke feeling more refreshed than she had in weeks, her sleep having been unimpaired by the recurring nightmare of her mother’s death and the panic that invariably followed her abrupt waking. Sitting up slowly, she took in her surroundings and remembered the events of the night before, the warm bath, the Doctor’s hand on her scars, and the tingle as he healed her knuckles, and realised she felt calmer than she had since he imparted the news to her, all those weeks before. 

She couldn’t recall ever feeling so conflicted, so torn between her head and her heart, with one encouraging her to forgive the Doctor, whilst the other still burned hot with anger for the events of 2005 and his part in them. She wanted desperately to forgive him, forgive her daft old man, but the voices inside her head – quieted, never silenced – insisted on maintaining her anger, demanding reparations for the hurt inflicted on her by his actions. Sighing and attempting to ignore the insistent whispers in her mind, she swung her legs out of bed and it was then that she noticed the steaming cup of tea on her bedside table, and despite herself she wrapped her hands around the warmth of the mug and took a fortifying sip. She wasn’t prepared for the discussion – or argument – to come, and so she tried to draw strength from the hot liquid and all that it symbolised: a peace offering, a kind gesture, a caring action. Wrapping herself in her favourite dressing gown, she wandered through the corridors to the console room, which was uncharacteristically devoid of the Doctor and was instead dimly lit, the roundels on the wall pulsing softly in time with her heartbeat.

“Hello?” she called tentatively. “Doctor?” Her voice shook a little with trepidation, so she closed her eyes to steel herself, and when she opened them again he had appeared before her, silent as a ghost, his face as nervous as her own.

“Hi,” he said, too unsure of himself to even offer a sarcastic quip, instead looking at the console and flicking a few buttons aimlessly. “Sleep well?”

“Yup,” Clara assured him with a slight smile. The Doctor noted the expression and felt his hearts soar a little, enjoying the fact she had regained the ability to smile, even if her eyes remained full of pain. “No nightmare. Makes a nice change. And thanks for my hands. Even if it was stupid to do.” 

“It wasn’t stupid! I didn’t… I don’t like…” he couldn’t go on without betraying his feelings, so he ducked behind the time rotor, lowering his gaze. 

“Don’t like what?” Clara asked, her voice surprisingly gentle, and the Doctor sighed and looked around the central column at her.  
  
“I don’t like seeing you hurt. Especially not when I’m to blame. Never have.” He admitted, his face flushing slightly, but he met her gaze steadily, and she could see the truth in his eyes.

“I know,” Clara said softly. “Look… I know it wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known about me, or what would happen. I just want one thing. Can you do that? One thing.” She felt almost foolish to ask him to grant her this request, but it was important to her and she knew he would not deny her this one trip.

“Name it.”

“I want to go back and see her. When she was young.”

 

~/~/~/~

 

Clara stepped out of the TARDIS and into the balmy seaside air of 1987 Blackpool with trepidation. Her heart was in her mouth, and she brushed imaginary specks of dust off her carefully chosen outfit for the hundredth time. Before them was the park she recalled so vividly from childhood, with the patch of scrubby grass and the rusting red swings, and she perched nervously on a bench that she dimly recalled having her first kiss on. She knew the Doctor was watching her on the TARDIS monitors, so she flicked her hair self-consciously, sighing inwardly and trying to act natural, act happy, act normal. This had seemed like such a good plan, such a simple request, but now she was unsure whether she had made the right choice, whether she was in the right frame of mind to do this or not. She was just wondering whether she would lose face if she stepped back into the TARDIS and asked the Doctor to take her back to her own time when Ellie entered the park with a pushchair, and Clara’s heart skipped several beats.

She stood up abruptly, the blood rushing to her head and her vision clouding, and she closed her eyes and clutched the back of the bench, praying the sensation would pass before she lost sight of Ellie and… herself. The Doctor had been very specific about the rules surrounding that, and she tried to run through them to encourage her heartbeat to slow back to normal.

“Oh my stars, are you alright?” an achingly familiar voice asked, and Clara’s eyes snapped open, taking in the sight of her mother, her face full of concern, and it was too much for her, too much for her current state to take in. Clara dissolved into tears and sank back onto the bench, Ellie taking hold of her arm reassuringly in a way Clara remembered fondly. “There, now, it’s alright! What’s wrong?” 

“I… just… bad week,” Clara mumbled through her sobs, and Ellie nodded sympathetically, her palm rubbing circles on Clara’s arm as she passed a crumpled tissue to her, which Clara immediately put to good use.

“It’s alright, love, I understand. We’ve all had them. My little one had colic last month… nightmare.” Ellie rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “She’s a good little thing, normally, but not when she gets ill… then she’s got lungs on her! My husband and I didn’t sleep for a week.” 

Clara smiled and wiped the last few tears from her eyes, looking down at her sleeping self in the pushchair and smiling slightly at the version of herself she was familiar with only from photographs. “She’s gorgeous,” she said, knowing the Doctor would tease her about it for weeks but no longer caring. “What’s her name?” 

“Clara,” Ellie said with a proud smile. “She’s seven months today. She’s a bright little thing, when she’s awake! She’s a good girl, but cheeky.”

Clara laughed a little, recalling some of the tales her parents had told her of her babyhood. “She looks like you,” she said softly, and Ellie scoffed. 

“People always say that, but I think she looks like my husband. He always says that’ll be a curse, if she gets the Oswald genes.” Ellie smiled fondly at the sleeping infant, stroking her cheek tenderly with a fingertip. “Such rubbish. She’s going to be brilliant.”

“I ah… I’ve got to go,” Clara mumbled, the situation suddenly becoming too much, and she stood up, smiling at Ellie apologetically. “Sorry, it was nice meeting you.” She began to walk away, the tears threatening to overwhelm her and drag her back under, and she sped up a little, hoping to reach the TARDIS before she broke down.

“Wait… I didn’t catch your name!” Ellie called after her, and Clara turned, her voice catching in her throat as she saw her younger self in Ellie’s arms, the youngster surveying the adult Clara with a look of curiosity.

“Clara,” she told her mother and younger self. “My name’s Clara.”

With that, she turned and ran, stumbling through the doors of the TARDIS and curling up on the stairs, feeling the Doctor’s arms around her as he let her cry.

 

~/~/~/~

 

She had never experienced pain like this, as the Quantum Shade took hold of her heart and ceased its regular rhythm, squeezed the air from her lungs and the breath from her throat. The oxygen left her brain at a rate that felt agonisingly slow, but as her knees hit the cobbles of Trap Street, her eyes opened in another consciousness, a new body, and she took in her surroundings.

“This isn’t…” she began, sitting up and feeling the reassuring beat of her heart through her chest. “I was…”

“You were dying, yes,” came a voice she recognised, and there was Ellie, smiling sadly. “Much too soon.”

“Am I dead?” Clara asked, the realisation dawning of where she was, and Ellie took her hand and pulled her daughter into her arms for the first time in ten years.

“Yes, darling. I’m sorry.” Ellie’s voice was soft, but Clara only nodded pragmatically.

“How was I?” she asked her mother, and Ellie’s eyes filled with tears.

“The bravest, and the brightest, and the most beautiful.” She assured her daughter, embracing her once again. “Always.”


End file.
